


Family Problems

by DreamingPagan



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Crack Fic, Daud is a dad, Daud wants the flashy blue blink, Fluff, Gen, Rulfio is also a dad, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and also the one who bullies Daud into taking care of himself, takes place in a universe where Corvo and Daud meet under not tragic circumstances, to about sixty kids of varying ages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:58:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17162393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingPagan/pseuds/DreamingPagan
Summary: Daud has a bone to pick with the Outsider.





	Family Problems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sirenswhisper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sirenswhisper/gifts).



He's in the Void again.

It's not the first time this month - or even the first time this week that he's woken up here. The Outsider, it would seem, is having his fun - but this time, Daud has no interest in wandering the wastes, looking for the black-eyed bastard.

"Why the fuck does Corvo get the flashy blue blink and I don't?"

He asks the question into the inky blackness, not really expecting an answer. Still- whatever the Outsider is, Daud has no intention of allowing him to go unquestioned, least of all on this. Corvo gets blue. Blue!

"Daud. Has anyone ever told you you whine too much?"

He whirls.

"He can possess people!" Daud snaps. "I can pull things. He controls wind, for void's sake!"

The Outsider waves a hand.

"Your powers are perfectly suited to your purpose," he says. "Corvo was made to exact his justice on Dunwall. You were meant to concentrate on raising my grandchildren."

"They're not your grandchildren!" Daud calls, but the Outsider has already disappeared - in a flash of blue, damn him. "Prick," Daud mutters, and he doesn't think he imagines the mocking laughter that floats back to him.

"Daud? Daud? Daud?"

The voice wakes him from sleep, and tears him from the void at the same time. He opens his eyes - and discovers that it is still night.

"Wha -?" he starts. There is a small figure standing next to his bed - one holding a very familiar teddy bear, and Daud sits up. "Andrei?"

The boy nods.

"Nightmare?" Daud asks, and Andrei nods again. Daud grimaces. He can imagine only too well what it was about - after all, he rescued Andrei from a plague-stricken house not five months ago.

Half his whalers are refugees and ex-mercs. They're hard, cold, traumatized people. The other half are kids like Andrei that Daud just can't bring himself to leave behind in whatever hellhole he finds them in.

"I heard rats..." Andrei says uncertainly, and Daud scoots over on the bed. He gestures - and the ten year old shuffles forward, climbing onto the bed.

"There are no rats that can get in here," Daud promises. He does a quick check - the dark in the room will hide the way his eyes bleed black for a moment. No rats - nothing stirring, in fact, except for him and the newest of his Whalers.

"Anyone else stirring in the bunkhouse?" he asks before Andrei settles completely. If he's going to have a bed full of Whalers with nightmares of one kind or another, he'd rather know about it now. Andrei shakes his head.

"Just Rulfio doing rounds," he murmurs, and Daud breathes out a sigh.

"He saw you leave?" he asks, and Andrei goes silent. That's no, then - and Daud will likely have his brother in bond if not by blood here within minutes, checking on the boy's safety.

He does not get out of bed. If Rulfio enters the room, he'll know enough not to disturb Daud's rest - and the room outside the blankets is cold. Daud makes certain that Andrei is tucked in tight and warm, and then rolls over. If he goes to sleep now - right now - he can have another three hours of rest before the day starts. He ignores the sound of a transversal near him, and the sound of the transversal that follows, and closes his eyes, determined to dream of something other than the black-eyed bastard and his endless cold.

He's woken again by a finger poking his cheek, and it had better not be Rulfio. He groans.

"What?"

The finger poking him ceases.

"Daud - do we get breakfast today?"

He closes his eyes again. Andrei. Of course. He opens his eyes again, and sits up.

In the kid's defense, the sun is well over the horizon, and the rest of the base is stirring. Daud can hear the sounds of the daily bustle - although thankfully not the sound of anyone poking at the river krusts, and hopefully THAT particular idiocy won't resume when the bastard things start clinging to the rocks again.

"There's breakfast here every day," he rumbles. "You know that by now. Hang on a minute - need to get dressed first."

He shuffles into the bathroom, and when he emerges, he might, just might, possibly be human again. Andrei is still waiting - teddy clutched tightly still, and Daud sees with a surge of fond exasperation that the child has made his way here with no shoes on.

"If you can get up onto my back without using that counter over there, I'll carry you," he offers. The kid's done well so far in his acrobatics lessons - but his free-running could use some work, and Daud has every intention of teaching it to him however he can. He waits a few minutes - and then feels small hands gripping his coat, pulling the child up his back. The hands settle on his shoulders, and he does the boy a favor by looping his arms and securing the bare feet on either side of him.

"Right," he grunts. "Time for breakfast."

He’s halfway through avoiding Rulfio by packing lunches for the Whalers on observation duty before he realizes that for all of his insistence to the Outsider - for all of his ire -

“I lost my marbles!”

The words come from his left. With a sigh, he reaches out with the Void - uses the pull skill he’d specifically intended for pulling targets toward him to stab - to retrieve Akila’s marbles from beneath the sideboard where they’ve rolled.

“Here,” he says, and the girl runs off.

He might, he thinks, just possibly owe the Outsider an apology.

He still wants blue Blink.


End file.
